Event Comment: Rich's Company. The date of the premiere is not knwon, but the Dedication is dated February 1699@1700, the play was entered in the Term Catalogues in February 1699@1700, and advertised in the Flying Post, 16 March 1699@1700. The latest likely date for the first production is January 1700, but the play may have appeared in late December as a rival to lif's production of I Henry IV early in January 1700. Cibber, Apology, I, 275: But the Master of the Revels, who then licens'd all Plays for the Stage, assisted this Reformation [of the morality of the stage] with a more zealous Severity than ever. He would strike out whole Scenes of a vicious or immoral Character, tho' it were visibly shewn to be reform'd or punish'd; a severe Instance of this kind falling upon my self may be an Excuse for my relating it: When Richard the Third (as I alter'd it from Shakespear) came from his Hands to the Stage, he expung'd the whole first Act without sparing a Line of it. This extraordinary Stroke of a Sic volo occasion'd my applying to him for the small Indulgence of a Speech or two, that the other four Acts might limp on with a little less Absurdity! no! he had no leisure to consider what might be separately inoffensive. [Cibber continues with an explanation of the censor's argument for cutting the act.] Preface to Cibber's Ximena, 1719: Richard the Third, which I alter'd from Shakespear, did not raise me Five Pounds on Third Day

Event Comment: The King's Company. For an edition of this play from the MS prompt copy, see The Change of Crownes, ed. F. S. Boas (Oxford University Press, 1949). For the consequences of Lacy's ad libbing, see 16, 20, and 22 April, and 1 May. Pepys, Diary: I to the King's house by chance, where a new play: so full as I never saw it; I forced to stand all the while close to the very till I took cold, and many people went away for want of room. The King and Queene, and Duke of York and Duchesse of York there, and all the Court, and Sir W. Coventry. The play called The Change of Crownes; a play of Ned Howard's the best that ever I saw at that house, being a great play and serious; only Lacy did act the country-gentleman come up to Court, who do abuse the Court with all the imaginable wit and plainness about selling of places, and doing every thing for money. The play took very much.... Gervase Jaquis to the Earl of Huntington, 16 April: Here is another play house erected in Hatton buildings called the Duke of Cambridgs play-house, and yester-day his Matie the Duke & many more were at the King's Playe house to see some new thing Acted (Hastings MSS, HA 7654, Huntington Library)

Event Comment: By Authority [of the Lord Chamberlain]. Benefit for Silvester and Rae. Mainpiece: Not acted these 6 years.Afterpiece: Never performed here. Tickets delivered for The Earl of Essex will be admitted. Tickets to be had of Silvester at Mrs Hobbe's, Stanhope-street, Clare Market; at Iver's Wine Vaults, No. 384, Oxford-street; of Rae, No. 35, Great Pultney-street, Golden-square

Event Comment: The Duke's Company acted at Oxford during this month, offering Cambyses and, presumably, other plays of which we have no record. See W. J. Lawrence, "Oxford Restoration Prologues," Times Literary Supplement, 16 Jan. 1930, p. 43, and Sybil Rosenfeld, "Some Notes on the Players in Oxford, 1661-1713," Review of English Studies, XIX (1943), 368

Event Comment: John Dryden wrote a Prologue to the University of Oxford and an Epilogue to the University of Oxford in 1674. The Prologue was apparently spoken by Hart, the Epilogue by Mrs Marshall. See also Sybil Rosenfeld, Some Notes on the Players in Oxford, 1661-1713, Review of English Studies, XIX (1943), 368

Event Comment: The King's Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@141, p. 215. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 345. Although there is no certainty that this is the premiere, the two performances in early May 1675 suggest that this performance and the two following represent the initial run. Dedication to edition of 1676: If Sophonisba receiv'd some applause upon the stage, I arrogate nothing from the merit of the Poem

Event Comment: In 1686 at Oxford the Act was cancelled at a late moment, but the players performed nevertheless. In mid-July Anthony Leigh, acting in The Committee, added some lines to his role that created a commotion. See Sybil Rosenfeld, Some Notes on the Players in Oxford, p. 370; Memoirs of the Verney Family, ed. Margaret M. Verney (London, 1899), IV, 381; Anthony Clark, The Life and Times of Anthony Wood (Oxford, 1894), III, 192-93

Event Comment: On this date the Queen granted permission for the company to act at Oxford from 10 July 1691 for twelve days. See CSPD, 1690-91, p. 430; Sybil Rosenfeld, Some Notes on the Players in Oxford, 1661-1713, pp. 370-71; and A Long Prologue to a Short Play, Spoken by a Woman at Oxford Drest like a Sea Officer, in Poems on the Affairs of State, Part III, 1698, p. 581

Event Comment: On the assumption that the run began on 28 June and extended twelve days (as Downes states), it would continue through 11 July. On 3 July a group of players entitled the Red Bull Company began a series of performances at Oxford. The performances are known through the entries in Anthony Wood's journal. For a discussion of the problems as to what actors these were, see Sybil Rosenfeld, "Some Notes on the Players in Oxford, 1661-1713", Review of English Studies, XIX (1943), 366. On this day the players acted Tu Quoque, in which, according to Richard Walden (Io Ruminans, 1662) Anne Gibbs acted Gertrude

Event Comment: On this day arrived in London the news of the death of the King's sister, the Duchess of Orleans, which occured on 20 June 1670. According to The Bulstrode Papers (I, 144), 25 June 1670: The players are silenced dureing this tyme of sadness. [Probably acting ceased for at least six weeks, the customary period for silencing the companies when the Court went into full mourning. Nevertheless, the Duke's Company may have been permitted to act at Oxford. See Sybil Rosenfeld, "Some Notes on the Players in Oxford, 1661-1713," Review of English Studies XIX (1943), 366-67.

Event Comment: The King's Company acted at Oxford during this month. See Sybil Rosenfeld, Some Notes on the Players in Oxford, 1661-1713, Review of English Studies, XIX (1943), 369-70

Event Comment: The King's Company. This play was acted at Oxford on 19 March 1680@1 before Charles II (see True Protestant Mercury, 19-23 March 1680@1; Wilson, Theatre Notes from the Newdigate Newsletters, p. 80; and Smith's Protestant Intelligence, 24-28 March 1681). The play may have been given first in London; if not, it probably was not acted there until after Easter, 3 April 1681. The company also performed The Plain Dealer in Oxford on 21 March 1680@1 (Smith's Protestant Intelligence, 24-28 March 1681)

Event Comment: The United Company played at Oxford in July. On 3 July the Queen recommended that permission be granted to the players to act there for twelve days beginning 7 July. See Rosenfeld, Some Notes on the Players in Oxford, p. 371. See also Luttrell, A Brief Relation, 4 July (III, 129)

Event Comment: Benefit Mrs Mills and Mrs Saunders. N.B. This is positively the last time of Acting till Winter, the Company being obliged to go immediately to Oxford. [For the Oxford repertory, see Cibber, II, 135-39.